Lessons from BI in Public Institutions
The study in this article provides reasons why BI is not fully implemented in some organizations. The thematic approach to determining why the technological tools are or are not used by managers provides an actionable set of areas where improvements can be made. One aspect that may relate to our discussions on asking the right questions is, "do managers really need to know how to use BI tools?" In many organizations, managers have enough knowledge about specialized data and tools to know how to task their specialists (BI analysts, in this case) to use them to answer their requirements. This can give analysts too much power in organizations with poor systems, whose data quality is questionable, or with authoritarian cultures where analysts fear giving the "wrong" answer. But in a highly effective environment, managers manage, and analysts analyze.
Recommendations and conclusion
The role of analytics in the organisation and management's perceptions of analytics
Seventy-seven per cent of managers perceive that the organisation promotes information readiness. Management places high value on reporting and appreciates the impact it has on the strategic direction of the organisation. This finding is supported by responses to the electronic survey questionnaire, which indicated that 61% of managers confirm that information culture is promoted within the directorates. Of the managers, 57% agreed that SAP BI benefits the public sector and 69% reported that they needed to report on HR, Finance, and KPI-related information. What has been discovered through the interview process is that a certain percentage of managers are not drawing the SAP BI reports themselves, but are requesting their assistants or clerks to fulfil this requirement. As a result, the statistics for management usage of SAP BI is skewed and an average of 7% of level 4 managers are using the SAP BI tool.
Specific factors that inhibit the managers' usage of analytics
This study has shown that SAP BI usage amongst level 4 managers is low and provides reasons for the low usage. The key problem areas that have been established are data quality, user training, and the SAP BI user interface.